Macerich Company (The)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the fourth quarter 2025 Mace Rich Earnings Conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you would need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would like now to turn the conference over to Alexandra Johnstone, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us on the fourth quarter 2025 earnings falls. During this call, we will make certain statements that may be deemed forward-looking within the meaning of the safe harbor of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding projections, plans, or future expectations. Actual results may differ materially due to a variety of risks and uncertainties set forth in today's earnings results, supplemental, and our SEC filings. Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the supplemental filed on Form 8K with the SEC, which is posted in the investor section of the company's website at MesaRich.com. Joining us today are Jack Shea, President and Chief Executive Officer, Dan Swanstrom, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Doug Healy. Senior Executive Vice President of Leasing. And with us in the room is Brad Miller, Senior Vice President of Portfolio Management. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Jack.

Thank you, Alexandra. And good afternoon and thank you for joining us. Before I begin, I want to thank the entire MAC team for their outstanding contributions throughout 2025. This was a year of significant execution and progress. made possible by the dedication and hard work of our people across the organization. 2025 was a pivotal year for the company. We entered the year with clear objectives under our path forward plan, simplifying the business, driving operational performance improvement, and reducing leverage. I'm pleased to report that we delivered against each of these pillars. Today, I'll spend time on our operational performance and leasing achievements, and then turn it over to Doug and to Dan to discuss the portfolio and balance sheet in more detail. Let me start with leasing, which continues to be the engine driving our path forward plan. For the full year, we signed 7.1 million square feet of new and renewal leases on a comparable center basis. an 85% increase over full year 2024, setting a new company record. Turning to our leasing speedometer, which tracks revenue completion percentage for all new leasing activity required to achieve our five-year plan, we are at 76% today, exceeding our 2025 year-end target of 70%. This puts us well on track for our mid-2026 target of 85% and positions us to substantially complete our new leasing objectives by year-end 2026. Importantly, we are achieving our target market rent assumptions in the plan. Another way to look at how far along we are with leasing is in terms of the new deals left to sign in our five-year plan. We are tracking a total of approximately 1,000 new deals in this plan. We now have 650 new deals open, executed, or in lease documentation. All that is remaining is 350 uncommitted new deals, totaling 1.6 million square feet, of which 150 are in the letter of intent stage. Our sign not open pipeline has grown to approximately 107 million, exceeding our 2025 year end target of 100 million. This is relative to our total cumulative snow opportunity of approximately 140 million in excess of the revenue generated in 2024. We have high confidence in achieving the full opportunity. Of the 140 million of total snow, the estimated incremental annual contribution is 30 million in 2026, 40 to 45 million in 2027, and 45 to 50 million in 2028. I'm excited about the progress we've made on our anchor initiatives. We targeted 30 anchor and big box replacements in our path forward plan, and I'm pleased to report that all 30 are now committed. We have five anchors open, five under construction, 11 executed, and nine with leases out. Consistent with the update we provided with our May rate presentation in December, these 30 anchors total 2.9 million square feet and are expected to generate approximately $750 million in annual tenant sales. More importantly, they're expected to drive traffic, extend dwell time, and catalyze in-line leasing throughout our centers. On a disposition front, we've made substantial progress toward our $2 billion goal. We've completed $1.3 billion of total mall and out parcel sales transactions to date. The team is very focused on getting the remaining mall and out parcel sold. I want to spend a moment on Crabtree, which we acquired in June. We are on track with our renovation plans and the new Dick's House of Sports store will open later this year. We were also pleased to see last month's announcement by Belk that they are consolidating consolidating their two locations at Crabtree into a full-store remodel and long-term lease extension of their flagship location at the east end of the property. Belk is a leading brand in the Carolinas, and their new store with a wine and coffee bar, personal shopper studio, and other amenities will complement the re-merchandising and leasing initiatives we have underway. We have already secured a commitment for backfilling the second Belks Anchor store with an entertainment-oriented retailer. Along with a very productive Macy's store, this solidifies the asset. Additionally, with the inline space, we have commitments on 18 new and 31 renewal leases. While we've only owned the mall since June, I believe we've already demonstrated that the platform we've built can create value. We'll continue to look forward for additional opportunities to put our platform to work. The milestones we delivered in 2025, leasing volume well ahead of plan, all 30 acres committed, 1.3 billion in dispositions completed, demonstrate that the Path Forward Plan is no longer just a plan. It's well along the way to completion across every pillar. As we enter 2026, I have tremendous confidence in our trajectory. The heavy lifting of de-risking the path forward plan is substantially complete. Our key focus areas for 2026 are one, completing the leasing pipeline of 350 additional new leases, 150 are in the LOI stage, two, solidifying the remaining 2026 lease expirations, and continuing to get ahead of the 2027 expirations. Three, getting tenants into physical spaces built out and paying rent on time. Four, completing the remaining dispositions. And five, continuing to evaluate new acquisition opportunities that are accretive to our plan and portfolio. Lastly, I want to note that we expect to provide an updated path forward plan 3.0 at Reef Week in June, and we intend to return to providing earnings guidance beginning in 2027. Doug, why don't you discuss the portfolio and leasing activity in more detail?

Thanks, Jack. Portfolio sales at the end of the fourth quarter were $881 per square foot. That's up $14 when compared to the last quarter And this now represents a high watermark for the company dating back to when we went public in 1994. When you look at our go-forward portfolio, sales were actually $921 per square foot. Traffic for 2025 was flat when compared with the same period in 2024. Occupancy at the end of the fourth quarter was 94%. up 60 basis points from the last quarter, with the majority of this increase coming from permanent occupancy versus temporary occupancy. The go-forward portfolio occupancy at the end of the fourth quarter was 94.9%, also up 60 basis points from the last quarter. Trailing 12-month leasing spreads as of December 31, 2025, were 6.7%. up 80 basis points from the last quarter. And this now represents 17 consecutive quarters of positive leasing spreads. In the fourth quarter, we opened 416,000 square feet of new stores for a total of 1.3 million square feet for all of 2025. Most notably, we opened our first Dick's House of Sports store at Freehold Raceway Mall in the former Lord & Taylor box. Grand opening was one of the best in their 35 store chain and the store continues to outperform all expectations. As a result, we've seen increase in traffic, not only in their wing, but also in the mall overall. And this has already had a positive effect on leasing space outside the Dick's location on both levels of the mall. We remain very bullish about this concept of the nine commitments we have with Dick's house of sport. As mentioned, Freehold is now open, and we currently have four additional stores under planning and or under construction at Crab Pre Valley Mall, Tyson's Corner Center, Washington Square, and Valley River. Crab Pre will open in the fall of this year. Tyson's Corner and Washington Square will open the fall of 2027, and Valley River will open in the spring of 2028. And we're working on adding to this list So stay tuned for more announcements in the very near future. As Jack mentioned, leasing was very strong in 2025. For the year, we signed 7.1 million square feet of new and renewal leases. This is 85% more square footage than we leased in 2024, and 2024 was a record year for us. It's important to note that of these 7.1 million square feet, 30% were new lease signings. Turning to our lease expirations, 2025 is behind us and we're now focused on 2026. Today, we have commitments on 80% of our 2026 expiring square footage that is expected to renew and not close, with another 16% in the letter of intent stage. This is unprecedented for us this early in the year. To put it in perspective, at this time last year, we were only 63% committed for our 2025 renewals. So we can now focus on our 2027, and in some instances, our 2028 lease expirations. Being able to work this far into the future significantly de-risks the renewal portion of our five-year plan. The retailer environment and tenant demand remain strong. in 2025 we reviewed and approved 40 percent more deals and 30 percent more square footage than we did in 2024. it's early days but thus far we're on par with where we were last year at this time further to this point in december we attended the annual icse leasing conference in new york city approximately 10 000 landlords and retailers attended to talk about current and future business. In just two days, we had almost 300 meetings with over 200 different retailers looking to do business in our portfolio. All categories remain active, including traditional retailers, international retailers, entertainment, experiential, food and beverage, wellness, and emerging brands. And we continue to sign leases with some of the best brands in our industry. such as Apple, Zara, Aritzia, Lululemon, Alo Yoga, American Eagle, Abercrombie & Fitch, Goryana, Edicted, and Warby Parker, just to name a few. As I've said in the past, never has the depth and breadth of retailer demand been what it is today. And again, I think this speaks to not only the health of our industry, but also to our portfolio of pure play class A retail centers. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Dan to go through our fourth quarter financial results.

Thanks, Doug, and good afternoon. I'll start with a review of fourth quarter financial results. FFO excluding financing expense in connection with Chandler Freehold, accrued default interest expense and gain on non-real estate investments was approximately $129 million, or $0.48 per share, during the fourth quarter of 2025. I would like to highlight the following item included in our FFO adjusted for the quarter. Legal claims settlement income of $16.1 million, partially offset by corporate expenses related to annual incentive bonus payouts above target levels, which resulted in an $8.4 million net impact or $0.03 per share. Go Forward Portfolio Center's NOI, excluding lease termination income, increased 1.7% in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. For 2025 full year, the Go Forward Portfolio Center's NOI increased 1.8% compared to 2024. Turning to the balance sheet, we continue to make strong progress on the balance sheet initiatives contained in our Path Forward plan. 2025 was an incredibly productive year by the team with transaction and financing activities. We have now closed on approximately $1.3 billion in dispositions, reduced leverage by a full turn lower, and addressed each of our 2025 debt maturities as well as a substantial portion of our 2026 debt maturities. Earlier this month, we closed on a four-year loan extension through November 2029, on our South Plains property. This $200 million loan extension was completed at the existing interest rate of approximately 4.2%. We're continuing to proactively address our remaining 2026 debt maturities through a combination of potential asset sales, refinancings, loan modifications, or if necessary, property givebacks. With respect to our 29th Street property, This $76 million loan at the company's pro rata share is now in default after its recent maturity date. As we are currently in discussions with the lender on the terms of this loan, we do not have any additional commentary at this time. We currently have approximately $990 million in liquidity, including $650 million of capacity on our revolving line of credit. From a leverage perspective, net debt to EBITDA at the end of the fourth quarter was 7.78 times, which is a full turn lower than at the outset of the path forward plan. And importantly, we've outlined our strategy to further reduce leverage to the low to mid six times range over the next couple of years. We are making substantial progress in executing on dispositions as part of the path forward plan. As previously announced, during the third quarter, we closed on the sale of three retail centers for approximately $425 million. During the fourth quarter, we closed on the sale of various out-parcels and land for $42 million, which included the sale of the retail strip center at Washington Square for $26 million. Year-to-date, we have closed on the sale of an additional out-parcels and land for $15 million. These sales transactions are consistent with our stated disposition plan to improve the balance sheet and refine the portfolio. We have identified a clear path to achieving our $2 billion disposition target. To date, we have again completed approximately $1.3 billion in total dispositions, and the disclosure we've provided in our supplement includes a summary of these asset dispositions. We have also identified several additional EDI assets totaling $200 to $300 million for sale or give back over the next year or so, which would increase total dispositions to the $1.5 to $1.6 billion range. One of these assets is Lacumbre Plaza, which is now under contract for approximately $11 million. This asset is unencumbered. The ongoing sales of certain out parcels and land represent the remaining 400 to 450 million of dispositions to achieve our total $2 billion disposition target. We currently have approximately 15 million in additional out parcel and land sales under contract for sale and over 50 million in various stages of negotiation. We'll provide further updates on our disposition activities as we progress through the year. In conclusion, we are making great progress on our path forward plan objectives to reduce leverage, refine the portfolio, and strengthen the balance sheet. With that, we'll turn the call over to the operator.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. we ask that you please limit to one question and one follow-up. The first question comes from Vince Tybone with Green Street. Line is now open.

Hi, good afternoon. You mentioned that you continue to evaluate acquisition opportunities. Could you just discuss kind of what Types of properties would be, you know, most likely acquisition candidates for Mace Rich over the near term. Like, are you looking for more value add deals like Crabtree where it can be, you know, immediately earnings accretive as well? Or would you consider, you know, stabilized higher quality centers that would have lower cap rates, probably, you know, seven or lower just to add to the value of the portfolio? Curious how you're thinking about, you know, just the acquisition landscape and most likely, you know, acquisition opportunities near term.

Vance, it's Jackson. Thanks for joining the call. I'd say primary focus is obviously to make sure that if we do an acquisition, it's accretive to our 2028 FFO plans and targets. So that's first and foremost. Second is that we believe that it fits within the portfolio metrics of our current portfolio and ranks well within it. I would say at least the short to medium term, it probably looks like more value-add kinds of opportunities that we're focused on. Crabtree is a great example because it's really a releasing or a lease-up value-add opportunity versus what I call a redevelopment opportunity. I'd say with our current cost of capital, to chase stabilized, call it seven and below kinds of yield assets we're not likely to do it on our own. It might be different if we had a partner, a capital partner, but for now, you know, we're principally going to focus on, uh, you know, those value add lease up opportunities. And just to note, you know, we brought on, uh, David Keene. He joined a couple of weeks ago from, uh, he was formerly at Washington prime group and spent many years over at general growth properties in the acquisition area. And we're excited to have David. He's, uh, already participated in our property review quarterly process, and was at our board meeting recently, and is actually touring assets as we speak.

No, that's all awful color on the acquisition side. If you were to find a deal of, say, similar size to Crabtree, is it fair to assume you would issue equity, or would you potentially ramp dispositions beyond the the $2 billion to make it leverage neutral? What would be the most likely funding source if you were to find a sizable deal that you wanted to move forward with?

I'd say selling properties to buy properties. I think we've gotten more, candidly, more inbound interest from capital partners to do transactions with on the acquisition side. You know, one thing we said is we want to simplify the business. So I think first choice would be issue equity. If it made sense from a cost of capital standpoint, you know, obviously we can't predict where, you know, our stock price will be, but probably that's our first preference. Second would be, you know, finding a capital partner that sees the asset and the strategy in the same way we do. And I'd say a very distant third would be recycling, you know, a property that we had to kind of bring that in.

Thank you. And our next question will come from Samir Kanaal with Bank of America Securities. Line is open.

Good afternoon. This is Andrew Real on for Samir. Thanks for taking our questions. Seems like there's a lot of tailwind from this leasing momentum. So just given the strength of your leasing pipeline now, how should we start to think about the magnitude and timing of a growth inflection in the second half and even into 2027 at this point? Yeah, hey, Andrew.

As we've talked about, and Jack kind of outlined our snow pipeline, which has $30 million of estimated contribution in 26. I would note that is back-end weighted in 26, consistent with how we've talked about the second half inflection point. But I think the real power of the snow pipeline, you can see in 27 and 28, in terms of the dollar numbers that are coming through, in those years, 40 to 45 million in 27, 45 to 50 million in 28. So that kind of lines up with the inflection point from a growth perspective.

Okay, thanks. And then just as a follow-up, it seems like, you know, holiday season was pretty strong. Could you just speak to the overall health of the consumer If performance has been consistent across the portfolio, if there's some bifurcation between the top and bottom of the quality spectrum. Thanks.

Yeah, I would say, like, you know, if you think about our customer, you know, we're definitely experiencing this pay shapes consumer. And I'd say, you know, if you think about some of the retail green shoots that some of our panelists are talking about, You know, obviously this calendar year, we're going to have a higher tax refund going through to people in this country. We've got the World Cup coming, which obviously will draw a lot more customer, more visitation to the U.S., you know, Summer Olympics in 28. And actually, you know, the kind of issue that SACS is going through, you know, I think is kind of an interesting opportunity as it relates to Macy's, Norsham's, Dillard's being able to really re-look at how they're thinking about luxury, items as well as just luxury demand you know in general um you know as it relates to that upper portion of the k that we're primarily focused on i think in a lot of our tendency on the inline you know if you look at our traffic uh for a go forward portfolio in 2025 you know it was it was up you know in the mid one and a half percent range um But if you really, or actually, I'm sorry, traffic was up like just flat, basically up 20 basis points. But inline sales were up 1.5%. But if you actually go down and look at luxury, the luxury sales were up almost 5.5%. So to me, I think that's a kind of early compelling sign of maybe what might be more coming in the future. And look, I think I've spent a lot of time with retailers, which is kind of new for me. But they're very focused. They know consumers are spending, but super selectively. They acknowledge this bifurcated pay economy with their different income tiers. But the one thing that's really consistent, branding, fit, merchandising, innovation, that's a consistent theme that we hear from our retailer customers. Promotional items are really being more targeted. And I'd say overall that their outlook is cautious but constructive, and we're seeing that in our leasing. There's real demand for space right now that we have remaining. The thing that strikes me that's so interesting is the retail store, physical store is still the most profitable lane for these retailers right now. They have Omnichannel, but their physical stores are their most profitable areas and lines of business. And the fact that we have no real new supply in the kinds of real estate assets that we compete in, I think is good for what we're trying to do right now.

Thank you. And our next question will come from Michael Griffin with Evercore.

Great. Thanks so much for taking the question. Just on the leasing pipeline, with 2026 de-risked as much as it is, have you started maybe being able to actively maybe not renew a certain amount of space in hopes of capturing higher rents? It just seems like with what feels like a lot more leverage that you might have on the leasing front, you're just curious how you break down the cost-benefit between you know, renewing a tenant, keeping them in place versus, you know, actively taking that space back and trying to release it at a higher rate?

That's a great question. You know, I would say overall when we set up this plan, you know, we have a thousand new leases. You know, we had full form of market rents in there that are very specific to each space of these thousand that we talk about. And on the renewals, we pro forma positive spreads on those as well, right? So you have two levers trying to happen at the same time. You know, for us, and I'd say like the unfortunate thing is, you know, we set a target out there in 2028. Time is kind of not our friend. And while we might be able to get more, if we start to lose time, We might get more, but it'll come in through 2028. So we're trying to balance what we can get done today based on the pro formas that we've run to back up this path forward plan versus trying to extract the very last dollar that's possible. I think your question is a really good one because I think we haven't really talked about what happens after 2028, but if you think of the amount of investment that we're putting into these centers, the 30 anchors. When we start to really look at renewals, you know, from 28, 29, 30, I think there's tremendous opportunity that we'll see that we've never really been able to see, say, over the last several years, just given how fully leased up these inline levels will be relative to historical standards.

Thanks, Jack. That's certainly some helpful context. And then maybe just one on external growth. You talked about acquisition, your potential opportunities earlier, but I'm curious if you've evaluated maybe other revenue streams, whether it's, you know, bridge lending, mezz financing, third-party management, just are there other levers you think you can pull sort of on the revenue growth side, you know, maybe outside of those potential external growth opportunities as it relates to acquisitions?

It's a great question because, you know, one thing that I love about this business is there are very few people that can do it, you know, in terms of being able to do it in scale on a national basis. And while it'd be tempting to look at that, and clearly I've thought about it, I feel like the real, you know, really staying focused on what we're trying to do right now, which is a lot actually, and trying to incrementally add, you know, quality acquisitions into the company, I think is, at least for the near term, going to be where we're really focused. You know, we do have opportunity to do MES and other structure because financing is very unique for this kind of asset base. But I think, like I said, in the short term, we'll stay focused on the pillars of the plan, which is right there in front of us for this year.

Thank you. And our next question will come from Floris Van Ditchcom with Lattenburg. Your line is open. Floris, your line is now open.

Excuse me. Is that better? I, thank you for taking my question. I wanted to ask about the go-forward portfolio, obviously, higher sales, Better occupancy, presumably these are the assets you're going to be spending your capital on. Could you maybe just give us a little bit more information? What percentage of total NOI does that portfolio represent today?

Yeah. Hey, Polaris. This is Dan. I'll refer you guys over to our supplement. If you kind of look at page seven, we've got NOI go-forward portfolio for the full year 2025 was $738 million relative to NOI for all the centers of 841. So, obviously, it represents a substantial majority and trending towards just the go-forward amounts.

Thanks, Seth. The other question is regarding your S&O pipeline. Maybe if you can give us a little bit more details, what percentage of, you know, actual percentage of your square footage does that represent? And maybe also maybe a little bit more information on what percentage of that 107 million, which is, again, ahead of estimates, represents luxury jack you mentioned luxury being you know uh having five and a half percent sales growth uh how much you know um expansion do you foresee in your portfolio from that particular segment i could start with the uh first part of the 107 million um it's not a large part of luxuries brad by the way i mean luxury is relatively uh

small part of our business at, you know, a little bit, mostly at Scottsdale and a little bit at FFC.

Yeah, Brad, I agree. It's Doug Flores. Our luxury really is in Scottsdale. It started in the Neiman Marcus wing, as you know, and given the demand we had once we finished the Neiman Marcus wing, we transitioned over to Nordstrom and turned that into a luxury wing. And at this point, we're basically done. I think we're 90%, 91% committed. And most of those luxury retailers have already gone through the pipeline. If you think about Tiffany who's opened and Hermes that's opened and Celine that's opened, there's very few left to open. They'll open the rest of this year and then few into 2027. So the luxury component is going to be probably a small percentage of the pipeline.

And I think, Floris, you know, you were asking about, you know, so if you think about the snow, that includes anchor stores and airlines. And I don't know if I'm answering your question the right way, but at least how I was thinking about it was, we refer to 1,000 inline. That's about 20%, 25% of the entire inline population of our go-forward portfolio. So if you think about just sheer numbers, we're effectively influencing about 20% to 25% of our inline floor plan. Then you think about the 30 anchors We're developing better leasing on the inline as well as those 30 will try to track traffic and also rent. And to me, like, and then if you look at the remaining 1.6 million square feet that we talked about of new leases, the 350, you know, uncommitted spaces, you know, 90% of that space or 90% of that CLO is in A, B, and C rated spaces. And another way to look at it, about two thirds of it are in our fortress and fortress potential property. So, so these are not bad spaces that are left or rump spaces. These are high quality spaces in our best centers. So we're confident that we're going to get the rate. We're just trying to keep, make sure we get the right tenant in there. That's going to do the right thing for the center. And, you know, just stepping back, you know, why are we doing all this stuff? You know, we, We are seeing, like I said, anecdotal evidence. When we opened Shields down at Chandler Center in Arizona, Shields generated about a 21% increase in the mall traffic, and it's continued to really be robust in that market. It does over $150 million in sales. And if you walk with our leasing team in that way, the before and after is quite tremendous in terms of how we're reimagining and releasing That wing, you know, at Tyson's, as strong as Tyson's is, in the fourth quarter, traffic was up 16% year over year because level 99 opened, skims opened, bizarre relocation happened, addicted opened, reformation of my genre was all open. So it had an impact to the center. But we also have the entire west side of the property that have two major, one major restaurant and one very proven restaurant restaurant food retailer that will drive tremendous traffic. Can't disclose the name yet. And so as we continue to add these stores and units in, Dick's House of Spork is on the north side. It's just going to have unprecedented ability to move traffic up. And then finally, Doug talked about Freehold. You know, Freehold, right, that House of Spork represents about 18% of mall traffic since it's opened. And so we're super excited. January is off to a great start. over the comp set. So more to come as we experience like these new anchors opening, new concepts, new re-merchandising happening, you know, in these centers. And so that's what's getting a lot of our customers excited on the retail front. It's helping us on the leasing.

Thank you. And the next question will come from Hindell St. Just with Mizuho. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Two quick ones from me here. First, I guess I appreciate the color on the asset tail to date and the discussions you have underway. Looks like you have, I think, 60 million of the remaining 400 to 500 remaining dispos under some level of discussion. But it also seems like we've been plus or minus at these same levels for a little while now, a couple quarters. So I'm curious, what's taking so long and what's your expectations for some movement in the dispos left to be done over the next year. Thanks.

Yeah. Hey Handel, this is Dan. I'll start and then Jack can chime in. Appreciate the question. You know, on the malls, we've got two to 300 million of remaining Eddie asset sales. And the timeline of that is, you know, in some part of function of the maturity. So we have some coming up this year and there's some others coming up later in the year on the out parcel and land side. Recall that we have said in the past, you know, from the beginning, we said that the sales in this bucket was going to be weighted towards 26 versus 2025. And that's primarily because many of these assets have some encumbrances, whether they're part of a loan collateral. So we have to work with the lender to kind of encumber them from that. On the land, some instances, there's some zoning and entitlements that are in the final stages that from a maximizing value to the company and shareholders, we'd rather wait a quarter or two to get to maximize that value with entitlement in hand. So there's kind of a story to a lot of these out parcels. They're not just sitting there ready to sell. It's just us working the process and continuing to execute on that. getting as many of those sold or under contract by the end of this year. There's no impact that we're seeing whatsoever as it relates to pricing or appetite in the market for these assets. It's just time to work through the sales.

Okay. I appreciate that. One more for me. I was thinking about the... It certainly seems like you're shifting a bit, focused more on external. You talked about... I was curious about the... the infrastructure, the resources of the platform you have in hand. So as part of this growth, one part that you've made enough progress, you're leasing and disposing now, looking to be opportunistic because the platform can operate and be more efficient with more assets. And so curious about the size, the efficiencies of the platform. And I'm curious how you're thinking about AI as you look at your business and what potential efficiencies you can leverage that to garner. Thanks.

Yeah, thanks, Adel. So on the new opportunity side, I think some of it's just a function of the market is reopening. I think the addressable market for mall opportunities is getting a little bit bigger than, say, it was last time this year. So that's kind of compelling, and we like sort of where these yields are, at least what we're seeing right now. As it relates to our platform, if you remember my comments a year ago this time, I talked a lot about process improvement committees and introduction of dashboards and efficiencies in terms of being able to create more resources operating efficiency just with the way our teams are communicating, CRM, new CRM that's in place. So I would say, like, we are able to easily scale given our current infrastructure with more GLA. The question I'm trying to balance right now is finding opportunities that enhance that 2028 FFO range that we've talked about. but also fit well with what I think our strengths are internally. So I don't think you'll see us doing heavy redevelopment as our next opportunity. We're very, very good at leasing. We're very, very good at credibility with retailers, like what we're experiencing down at Crabtree. And so to me, those are more easy putts, short putts. You know, I think assets that have a more deeper value add. And I think we'll look at those very diligently and carefully to see if that fits with our strategy. But I would say like, when I look what I think about one year ago versus today, organizationally, the organization is really advanced. Quite amazingly, if you were sitting in here from a technological standpoint, Operational standpoint, process standpoint, communication standpoint, decision-making standpoint. And that's not really relevant to AI. That's just human beings and Microsoft BI and different things like that. As it relates to AI for us, because I've asked that question for a week now. How are you all thinking about AI? Do you listen to Walmart? Look, they're selling large volumes, pennies. matter for them and so ai will definitely i think influence what they do but if you think about what we do you know apparel companies you know customers that are constantly looking for innovation and fashion and things like that i think there's i think ai is still i think if you were to ask retailers that that that are primarily focused in our centers you know they're still trying to understand like how it can really leverage their system I think when you look at mass retailers like Walmart, I think it's a different circumstance given what they do in terms of scale. And it's falling back to what we do. I think it's still early days for us, the rest of you. I'm trying myself to get more up to speed and think about how it can influence us. But we have so much learning through just doing the basics here and executing to add value. But I think In the coming next couple years, we'll really look at and see how it can help us.

Thank you. And the next question will come from Todd Thomas with KeyBank Capital. Your line's open.

Yeah, hi, thanks. First question on the South Plains refi. I appreciate the detail there, and apologies if I missed it, but was there any consideration of related to the decrease, the extension there and the decrease in the coupon from 7.97% to 4.22% or is that decrease pretty straightforward as far as the impact on the P&L and it'll result in nearly 400 basis points of savings?

Yeah. Hey, Todd, this is Dan. I would just clarify the higher rate that you're referring to represented the effective interest rate, right? So when we bought out our JV interest in South Plains, there was a debt mark to market. And so that kind of flowed through the effective interest rate, which was higher. The coupon remains the same at 4.2%. So going forward, what we wouldn't have is that debt mark-to-market amortization as an additional cost. It'll just be kind of the coupon.

Okay, got it. That's helpful. And then I just wanted to follow up on the out parcel and land sale opportunity. You previously talked about a 7% to 8% cap rate on those deals. um you know x land and i realize um you mentioned some of those assets are um you know collateral for loans and and or there are some other things that you know may need to happen uh for those out parcel and freestanding transactions to move forward and take place but has the market changed at all uh in recent quarters around pricing is there any change to that seven to eight percent cap rate target

No, we're still tracking towards that. We've had a number of these out parcels, some smaller deals that have been sub seven cap. You know, this most recent transaction with the retail strip center at Washington Square was done right in that 7% range. So if anything, we're probably tracking, you know, maybe slightly ahead, but generally expect to be in that 7% to 8% range for the out parcel components of the program.

Thank you. And our next question will come from Ronald Camden with Morgan Stanley. Your line's open.

Great. Just two quick ones. So looking at the go-forward portfolio NOI without lease termination income, that's sort of 1.7% year-over-year number. I was just wondering if we could just dig into in terms of whether it's some of the closures that we have this year, whether it's some of the proactively taking back space and converting to better tenants. Just, you know, how much do you think of that? What's the magnitude of the impact on that year-over-year number? Just so we get a sense of what, you know, what the growth rate could be as those things sort of go away.

Yeah. Hey, Ronald. And again, 25 was a transitional year. As we've discussed, we had frictional downtime as we're executing on all of our tenants. and strategy initiatives, um, just to give you a flavor of how we were impacted by forever 21 year over year, which had a high percentage rent contribution in the fourth quarter of 2024. Um, you know, excluding forever 21, um, that would have been 2.7% for the fourth quarter and closer to 2.5% for the year. Um, so that just gives you a sense for, um, 2025, you know, and, you know, going forward, I know we've talked about this in the past, but, you know, I'll refer you back to our path forward plan update that we put out last summer. You know, in there, we had an NOI bridge that assumed a midpoint CAGR of 5.2% for the go forward portfolio for the four year period of 2025 through 2028. Obviously, in 2025, you can see we landed at 1.8%. obviously that implies significant growth in the future. For 26, we think we'll be at least 3% back-end weighted. But when you look at that in the context of 27 and 28, you can see that obviously that implies a significant increase above that kind of 5.2 Kiger levels in those years.

Really helpful color. Just the second one, and appreciate that, we'll get an update mid-year and guidance in 2027. Just, can you talk about just, I think you said there was an inflection point happening mid-year around this time. A lot of that is related to the leasing and so forth, but just organizationally, is there sort of any other sort of pieces of the plan that you're waiting on for that inflection point, or is it solely tied to the leasing?

Thanks. No, I mean, I think we're just business as usual. I mean, we've brought in a some of the focus on the lead or acquisition effort. So it's kind of a new, that's going to create a new, I'm sure that a lot of people will be busy as we're sort of evaluating different opportunities. But I would say, yeah, we're operating, trying to execute this new thing initiative.

Thank you. And our next question will come from Craig Mailman with Citi. Your line's open.

Hey, good evening, guys. Just the first question I have on the equity and income, you guys had a pretty big pickup sequentially, and a lot of that looks to be from other. Could you just tell us what that is and if that's sustainable or more just seasonal?

Yeah, hey, yeah.

Craig, you know, a big piece of that, sorry, just so I know, like, are you referring, what periods are you exactly referring to?

4Q over 3Q. So you guys, you know, just looking through the supplemental, you know, 4Q, you guys had 27.5 million versus 9.7 last quarter, and other income was 25 million up big sequentially.

Okay, yeah, that's helpful to clarify. I just wanted to make sure I was addressing your question. It's really driven, you know, in the fourth quarter of this year, as I alluded to in my prepared remarks, we had a legal settlement income, which was about $16 million in the fourth quarter of 2025. So that's really driving the lion's share of that $20 million increase from the fourth quarter of 2024.

Great. Sorry, I missed that in your prepared remarks. And then just the second question, I know it's a little bit early here, but Jack, any early insights into maybe what the evolution of the path forward plan could be in version 3.0? Like what are the big items we should be expecting?

When I look at, as I said in my remarks, in terms of things that we're focused on, you know, obviously acquisitions, dispositions, we'll give you an update. I think by our leasing speedometer, I think we'll give a very good update a little over the year. One thing we haven't talked about in detail, which I think we'll start to talk about, is rent commencement dates. It's a huge issue at our company in terms of tenant coordination, legal, asset management, also with leasing, trying to get these spaces on time, tenant in place, rent commencing. And so it's a big work stream that you all don't see. And we haven't put any disclosure out there, but I believe that we'll be less talking about new leasing and more about RCD, what we call RCD rent commencement date. So I think that's going to be something that you'll see in the middle of the year. My guess is, you know, we'll be tightening down our 2028 ranges of what we put out there. And I keep looking at Dan, we'll probably be talking about 29 at that point, possibly, because we see, we can forecast out from there what's happening here. And I guess, you know, just continued updates on our development, you know, three development projects. So, but I think RCD will be, you know, red commencement dates providing more insight into that. It will be something we'll talk about middle of the year.

Thank you. And our next question will come from Greg McGinnis with Scotiabank. Your line is open.

Hey. I just wanted to touch on the couple remaining on or a couple of the remaining non-go-forward assets. With 29th Street not in that portfolio and in negotiations with lenders, Is the expectation to hand that asset back, or do you believe that there's kind of equity value to extract thereafter negotiations? And then what's the plan on fashion outlets in Niagara? Is that an expected handback?

Yeah, I appreciate the question. I think, you know, at this point, you know, I just gave you the sort of latest state of play on – 29th Street, you know, probably no additional commentary at this point. We'll obviously give you guys updates as we have relevant news to share.

Okay. And then on the development side, are Green Acres and Scottsdale projects fully leased? What percent of those tenants are expected to open in 26? And are those leases included in the S&O pipeline?

Yeah, hey, it's Brett. Yes, they are in the S&O pipeline. So roughly of $107 million, roughly about $20 million comes from our Bellarmine pipeline. And then, Doug, if you want to talk to the leasing aspects.

Yeah, so, Greg, at Scottsdale, as I think I mentioned earlier, we're just about done. We're 91% committed with very few spaces left. And at Green Acres, we are about 75% committed. The majority of the exterior redevelopment is complete, and the work to do right now is on the interior. But the good news is we've added some really powerful tenants. We're adding some powerful tenants to Green Acres. We think about ShopRite, Grocery, Sephora, Cheesecake Factory, Shake Shack, Foot Locker, JD Sports. It's really going to redefine the exterior. It's going to create a new grand entrance, and the hope is, the plan is, that it all funnels into the inside, and that's what we're starting to see today.

Thank you. And the next question will come from Omotayo Okasanya with Dorche Bank. Your line's open.

Yes. Good evening, everyone. While you guys don't have, you know, any real facts or Francesca's exposure, could you just talk a little bit about kind of what you're seeing out there in terms of just tenant credit in general and whether, you know, as you kind of think about 2026, whether that's kind of more or less of a risk for you guys?

Yeah, hey, thanks for the question. You know, certainly those issues are in the news for us. You know, I think the summary is, you know, we don't expect a meaningful impact from this group, you know, as it relates to 2026. And I don't think they're reflective of the overall strong retailer environment that we're seeing across the board that Doug alluded to at our centers. You know, our watch list remains at an all-time low. And none of those centers would impact kind of how we're thinking about our 2026 bad debt expectations for the portfolio.

Thank you. And our next question will come from Alexandra Goldfarb with Piper Sandler. Your line's open.

Hey, thank you. And Alexander, so two questions. First, Jackson, you've Obviously, you've hired a CIO and you've been doing a lot of work on the portfolio. Just curious, with how the debt markets have improved and how you're looking at dispositions, do you think part of Mace Rich may now be in a position where the unencumbering of wholly owned assets could start to be part of the mix? Do you think the company is there yet? Or with everything that you're doing right now, you just don't see the asset sales and capital markets quite there enough to start that down that process.

You're talking about like unencumbering for like an investment grade rating or something like that?

Not, not investment grade, but just start to create like a pool of, of unencumbered assets.

I mean, I'd say like, if you think about like Crabtree, I mean, we, we kind of pursued, it's a terminal, but it's not a,

yeah i was just saying you know we you know we paid off um the debt on flat iron you know proud tree it's got a term loan that's highly flexible it gives us some maturity but it gives us um you know an ability to prepay it so um i don't i don't think it's you know an immediate near-term priority but maybe more medium-term to aspirational um to start to increase our wholly owned assets um more unencumbered okay

And then as far as the legal settlement goes, can you give a little bit more color on what drove it and is this like a one-off or is there potential that there are other of these one-time benefits that you guys may be able to harvest?

Sure, appreciate the question. Yeah, it relates to a former development project that we're no longer pursuing that resulted in a favorable settlement outcome. It's non-recurring item in other income, as I mentioned, and it's not part of the go-forward portfolio.

Thank you. And our next question will come from Michael Mueller with JP Morgan. Your line is open.

Yeah, hi. Can you comment on what rent spreads have been on the 2026 leases that you've addressed so far? And for the second question, are you seeing any uplift in shop leasing escalators compared to a couple of years ago?

Okay, on the rent spreads, you know, first, you know, the way we've historically talked about rent spreads, and obviously you saw it, over 6% for this group, it's really not correlated to the success of our path forward plan. You know, our path forward plan, if you think about it, we have a set number of new spaces that were focused on leasing that have market rents tied to them, TA assumptions tied to them. So achieving in excess of that, you know, more rent, less TA is good for us. Because all this will sort of result in increased permanent occupancy, more productivity. I don't like the measure, it doesn't, and then we're also, renewing a really large volume of renewals. And I don't think it really correlates to what we're really trying to do. It probably gives you the wrong impression or not the right impression. So we're evaluating that metric. I don't know exactly. I don't believe it really works right now for us in terms of the success of our plan. So we're going to try to see if there's a better way to do it.

And, Michael, it's Doug. I think you asked about escalators. There really has been no change. We've been consistent over the years, and we remain consistent. The escalators, when you blend the escalators for fixed minimum rent and CAM, you're somewhere in that 3% to 4% range. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. And our last question will come from Caitlin Burrows with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Hi. Maybe two more on the occupancy front. As a follow-up to Floris' Snow question from earlier, I guess maybe phrasing it a different way, you guys reported the 94.9% lease rate. Could you tell us what your economic occupancy is for the go-forward portfolio?

Yes. Hey, Caitlin. It's Brad Miller here. Yeah, so we're at 94.9% on the leased occupancy. Our physical occupancy is closer to 91%.

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Jack Shea for closing remarks.

Good. Thank you, operator. Thanks again for your participation today. We look forward to seeing many of you at the conferences and property tours in the coming weeks. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.